Journal of Military Ethics,
Vol. 6, No. 1, 1"18, 2007
Sovereignty and Ethical Argument in
the Struggle against State Sponsors
of Terrorism
RENÉE DE NEVERS
Department of Public Administration, The Maxwell School, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY,
USA
ABSTRACT In prosecuting the war on terror, the Bush Administration asserts that the protections inherent in state sovereignty do not apply to state sponsors of terrorism. I examine three
elements of normative arguments to assess the administration’s policies. The administration
sought to delegitmize terrorism by underscoring the uncivilized nature of terrorist acts. It sought
to link the war on terror to efforts to prohibit the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD),
and to frame the invasion of Iraq as central to this war. Finally, the administration proposed new
international standards of behavior by arguing that state sponsors of terrorism should be held
accountable for terrorist acts planned on their territory, and by seeking to link the protections
against intervention inherent in the sovereignty norm to this behavior. Despite initial support for
delegitmizing terrorism, the US attempt to frame the war on terror as linked to WMD and Iraq
met with skepticism, and it faced fierce competition from alternate frames with regard to Iraq.
Finally, the invasion of Iraq stimulated resistance to US policy on normative grounds, with
particular concern about the consequences for the sovereignty norm.
KEY WORDS: Norms, Sovereignty, Ethical argument, Terrorism
Introduction
The war on terror has been the central focus of US foreign policy for over five
years. The military components of this war have received the greatest
attention, particularly the overthrow of the Taliban government in Afghanistan and the ousting of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq. Accompanying
these military activities has been an effort to shape the debate about terrorism
and to gain support, both domestically and internationally, for the Bush
Administration’s views of the appropriate use of force and the targets of force.
Notably, the administration has sought to promote the view that the
protections inherent in state sovereignty do not apply to states that sponsor
terrorism. Since the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York City and
Washington, DC, the Bush administration has designated not only terrorists,
Correspondence Address: Renée de Nevers, Assistant Professor, Syracuse University, Department of Public
Administration, The Maxwell School, Syracuse University, 215 Eggers Hall, Syracuse, NY 13244, USA.
Tel.: !1 315 443 7093. Email: [email protected]
1502-7570 Print/1502-7589 Online/07/010001 "18 # 2007 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/15027570701228511
2
R. de Nevers
but also state sponsors of terrorism, as the enemy. Indeed, in his first speech
to the nation after the terrorist attacks, US President George W. Bush said:
‘We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts
and those who harbor them’ (Bush 2001).
Although terrorism is widely regarded as abhorrent, and the international
community supported US actions in Afghanistan in 2001, the US has been
unable to generate international consensus supporting its prosecution of the
war on terror. Notably, the US effort to characterize the invasion of Iraq as
part of the war on terror, and to compel regime change there, appears to have
stimulated resistance to US policy on normative grounds, with particular
concern about the consequences for the sovereignty norm.
Despite claims in recent years that globalization is eroding state sovereignty, most states continue to view sovereignty as one of the core norms on
which international society is based. Among its key components are internal
autonomy and the right to non-intervention, which together accord states
sole authority over their population and territory. These are enshrined in
Article II of the United Nations (UN) Charter, which recognizes the
sovereign equality of all states and their commitment to refrain from using
force against ‘the territorial integrity or political independence’ of other states
(Charter of the United Nations 1945).
Many of the Bush administration’s efforts seek to shape attitudes about
appropriate state behavior. This suggests that the literature on international
norms, and in particular norm change, may offer insights into US policy and
the response it received.1 I ask two questions in seeking to understand US
policy and the international response to it. First, how has the United States
tried to use normative arguments in the war on terror? Second, how
successful has the Bush administration’s use of arguments been? I examine
three elements common to normative and ethical argumentation in examining
the Bush administration’s policies: efforts to delegitimize certain normative
practices; manipulating the frames within which policies or practices are
viewed; and efforts to reconfigure understandings of appropriate state
practices. The Bush administration sought to delegitimize terrorism by
underscoring the immoral and uncivilized nature of terrorist acts, and by
linking terrorism to widely condemned practices like piracy and slavery. It
sought to frame the war on terror as connected to efforts to prohibit the
spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and then to frame the
invasion of Iraq as central to the war on terror. Finally, the Bush
administration proposed new standards of behavior for states by arguing
that state sponsors of terrorism should be held accountable for terrorist acts
planned or perpetrated from their territory, and by seeking to reshape
understandings of when states deserved the protections against intervention
inherent in the sovereignty norm.
Background: Terrorism and the Problem of State Sponsors
The United States and the international community have struggled with the
problem of terrorism for decades. I briefly examine US and international
Sovereignty and Ethical Argument in the Struggle 3
efforts to combat terrorism, and then turn to the US’s strategic response
to 9/11.
US Policies on Terrorism before 9/11
The United States has actively sought to quell terrorism and state support for
it since the 1970s. American citizens, embassies, and soldiers were frequent
targets of terrorist attacks in Europe and the Middle East, making this an
issue of US self interest. The Export Administration Act of 1979 required
that the State Department annually publish a list of states believed to be
supporting terrorist groups by providing them with financial support,
military training or weapons, diplomatic privileges, or sanctuary, and it
designated sanctions to be applied toward these states (Katzman 2003).
Despite a strong public stance, however, the United States rarely resorted
to force in response to terrorist acts.2 Moreover, its efforts to confront
terrorists have suffered from competing and shifting priorities. A fundamental
problem was the lack of consistency in designating which states belonged on
the terrorism list, and in the policies adopted toward them. The criteria that
merited a state’s inclusion could apply to more states than those officially
listed as sponsors of terrorism. Inevitably, political factors played a major role
in which states were specified as terrorist sponsors " or as ‘rogue’ states,
another focus of concern. Iraq was removed from the terrorist list in 1982, for
example, when the United States threw its support behind Saddam Hussein in
his war against Iran, and was not added again until September 1990, after
Iraq invaded Kuwait (Guelke 1998: 149). Similarly, the United States tailored
its policies to encourage states it believed were moving to curtail their support
for terrorists. The United States maintained diplomatic ties with Syria and
never designated it as a rogue state, for example, in spite of its delineation as a
terrorist state, while isolating Iran and instituting a policy of ‘dual containment’ toward Iran and Iraq as rogue states in 1994. Nonetheless, US efforts
during the 1990s to brand these states as outside the pale of international
society, and to push for changes in their behavior, laid a foundation for the
later decision to hold regimes accountable for terrorism emanating from their
territory.
Significant differences existed between the United States and its key allies
regarding states believed to be supporting terrorist groups prior to 2001, at
both the principled and policy levels. At the principled level, some European
governments appeared sympathetic to the definitional disputes over terrorism
and ‘legitimate’ political violence, and some accepted a distinction between
the political and military wings of terrorist organizations. The political wing
of the militant Palestinian group Hamas, for example, was allowed to operate
freely in the European Union (EU) until late in 2003 (BBC News, 2003).
At the policy level, two issues were central: a disagreement about how to
change state behavior, and friction about international legal principles and
US law. In contrast to the US policy of containing rogue states, many
European states argued that the best way to convince states like Iran to
change their behavior was through a combination of trade and ‘critical
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R. de Nevers
dialogue’. Engagement, not containment, was seen as a more effective means
to convince these states to change. The disagreement was inflamed in the mid1990s when the US imposed ‘secondary sanctions’ against foreign firms doing
business with states it was trying to isolate: Cuba, Iran, and Libya. This
outraged key US allies and led several to take retaliatory legal measures. The
dispute eased only in 1998 when the United States agreed to waive
enforcement of some provisions in these laws (IISS 1997: 44"45; Litwak
2000: 84"86).
International Efforts to Combat Terrorism
International efforts to combat terrorism have long suffered from two major
problems: lack of agreement on a definition of terrorism (Hoffman 1998), and
the inability to enforce agreements. Terrorism per se was never viewed as
acceptable by the international community of states, since terrorists
frequently aimed to undermine governments or state policies. Bitter debates
have raged for decades, however, over whether particular acts should be
condemned as terrorism or accepted as legitimate acts in national liberation
struggles against colonial or oppressive governments. The adage ‘one man’s
terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter’ exemplifies this controversy.
These handicaps notwithstanding, by the end of the 1990s the international
community established 12 conventions designed to address specific terrorist
acts (Bassiouni 2002). Some of the ideological barriers to international
cooperation against terrorism also eased at this time; the Soviet Union’s
collapse removed a significant source of support for some terrorist groups,
and the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s condemnation of terrorism
after the Oslo Peace Process increased the prospect of greater cooperation
against terrorist groups (Wilcox 2002). Yet no mechanisms to enforce state
compliance with international conventions existed, and many states failed to
sign or ratify these conventions.
The principle that it is unacceptable for states to support terrorist groups is
not new; it existed in some international treaties before 9/11. For example, the
International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism,
adopted in 2000, not only obligated states to take steps to block the
transmission of funds to terrorist groups through or from their territories, but
also noted states’ obligation to prevent their territory from being used to
prepare terrorist acts. Additionally, several UN Security Council (UNSC)
resolutions passed in the 1990s directly addressed the issue of state support
for terrorist groups, and stipulated states’ obligation not to support terrorist
activities. In a resolution following the bombing of US embassies in Kenya
and Tanzania in 1998, for example, the UNSC emphasized that each member
state must ‘refrain from organizing, instigating, assisting or participating in
terrorist acts in another state or acquiescing in organized activities within its
territory directed towards the commission of such acts’.3 Several UNSC
resolutions, including Resolutions 1267 and 1333, specifically addressed the
problem posed by the Taliban’s support for Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan, and reiterated the obligation of states"or in this case, the group
Sovereignty and Ethical Argument in the Struggle 5
controlling a substantial portion of Afghan territory " to prevent terrorists
from using their territory as sanctuary or for training purposes, and placed
sanctions on the Taliban to coerce its compliance. Notably, these resolutions
were passed under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which made compliance
with them mandatory, and implied that the Taliban itself was a threat to
international peace and security due to its support for terrorists.4
The US Strategic Response to September 11
Within hours of the 9/11 attacks, US government experts had ascertained that
the attacks were committed by the Al Qaeda terrorist group. The strategic logic
of linking state sponsors of terrorism and the terrorists themselves was
immediately evident. The US could do little to punish terrorist organizations
without attacking the territory of the states that were supporting them"in this
case, Afghanistan. Moreover, as Vice President Dick Cheney pointed out, states
made easier targets than did amorphous terrorist groups (Woodward 2002: 48).
The strategy of designating state sponsors of terrorism as one of the central
opponents has continued to shape US policy in the war on terror ever since.
The United States clearly intended its response to 9/11 to have a compellent
effect on states believed to be supporting terrorists.5 Thus, the second goal in
attacking Afghanistan was to get the attention of these states, and to compel
them to change their policies. The compellence argument emerged in internal
discussions within a week or two of the 9/11 attacks; US decision-makers
speculated that invading Afghanistan would demonstrate that sponsorship of
terror was no longer acceptable state behavior (Woodward 2002: 98).
National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice enunciated this argument in
an interview on Al Jazeera on 16 October 2001. She noted that Bush’s
inclusion of state sponsors as the opponent was ‘an invitation to countries to
stop the practice of harboring terrorism . . . . Get out of the business of
sponsoring terrorism. We’re asking that of every state of the world. You
cannot be neutral in this fight; you either are for terrorism or against it’ (Rice
2001). Very early on, then, the goal of making state support for terrorism
unacceptable, by force if necessary, was present.
Arguments about Terrorism
US military actions were accompanied by efforts to convince the international community to endorse the rejection of state sponsorship of terror.
These can be examined through the prism of ethical argumentation. I focus
here on three strategies: the US effort to delegitimize terrorism, its attempt to
frame the war on terror in support of its preferred policies, and efforts to
reconfigure understandings of appropriate sovereign state practices.
Delegitimizing Terrorism
Delegitimizing a particular practice requires showing that it is out of synch
with the norms of the actors carrying it out, and highlighting the hypocrisy of
6
R. de Nevers
continuing this practice(Crawford 2002: 102"103). The Bush administration
explicitly sought ‘to delegitimize terrorism’ as part of a ‘war of ideas’ against
terrorists (National Security Council 2003: 23"24). The administration
adopted three arguments to further the goal of placing terrorism outside
the pale of acceptable behavior. First, the administration repeatedly argued
that terrorist acts could never be justified, stressing that they were aimed at
innocent civilians, and amounted to murder. Thus, it labeled terrorist acts as
immoral and outside the realm of acceptable behavior. In a range of speeches
between 2001 and 2004, Bush stated that terror was ‘lawless violence’,
‘wicked’, ‘against all humanity’, and Bush stressed that ‘targeting innocent
civilians for murder is always and everywhere wrong’ (Bush 2002, 2001, 2003).
The Bush administration did not engage the earlier debate over how to define
terrorism, but simply focused on terrorist acts as unacceptable behavior. In
the National Security Strategy (NSS) adopted in September, 2002, the
government noted that ‘the enemy is terrorism " premeditated, politically
motivated violence perpetrated against innocents’ (Bush 2002b).
Second, the administration repeatedly straddled the intersection of ethical
and identity arguments by invoking ‘civilization’ and condemning terrorism
as behavior that must be unacceptable to ‘civilized’ states. The standard of
‘civilization’ has a long history in international law and international society
(Gong 1984), and invoking this standard gave legal weight to the Bush
administration’s effort to delegitimize terrorism. At the same time, this
functioned as an identity argument, focusing on how people (or states)
perceive themselves as members of a community or group; if they view that
group positively, they will identify positively with and seek to emulate
behaviors associated with that group (Crawford 2002: 24"26). Invoking the
language of ‘civilized states’ suggests that those who wish to be part of this
club must adopt ‘civilized’ or ‘respectable’ behavior. Bush and others insisted
repeatedly that ‘every civilized nation’ must fight terrorism, stressing that
terrorism threatened ‘civilization itself’ (Bush 2002c, 2004, 2002d; Rice 2002).
The language of civilization was also used to warn states against supporting
terrorism: ‘All governments that support terror are complicit in a war against
civilization’ (Bush 2003). This language appeared in US policy documents,
and it was also adopted by the US’s closest ally, British Prime Minister Tony
Blair.
The administration also invoked identity arguments by branding state
sponsors of terrorism as outlaw states, and emphasizing the inappropriateness
of this behavior. This mirrored previous US efforts to stigmatize states
suspected of seeking WMD as rogue or outlaw states, and thus outside the
international community. In his address to the United Nations in September,
2002, for example, President Bush argued that the international community
was threatened by ‘outlaw groups and regimes that accept no law’ (Bush
2002c).
Third, the administration sought explicitly to link terrorism to the practices
of piracy, slavery and genocide, practices widely regarded as unacceptable and
repugnant to the international community.6 This linkage appeared in official
policy documents such as the 2002 NSS and the 2003 National Strategy for
Sovereignty and Ethical Argument in the Struggle 7
Combating Terrorism (NSCT), which stated the aim of making terrorism
illegitimate, so that it ‘would be viewed in the same light as slavery, piracy, or
genocide: behavior that no respectable government can condone or support
and all must oppose’. Some administration officials reiterated this argument
as well. For example, Douglas Feith, the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy
noted in early 2003 that ‘I think that we may be on the way to creating a new
international way of thinking, a new international norm, about terrorism. If
you look at the national-security-strategy document that the White House
put out, it says that our goal is to make terrorism like piracy, the slave trade,
or genocide in the minds of people around the world. It is to delegitimate
terrorism as an activity, as a practice’ (Lemann 2003: 72).
Framing the War on Terror
Framing domestic and international understandings of the war on terror
comprised a second element of the Bush administration’s use of ethical
argument. Issue framing is an essential part of most political debates. How a
topic is framed sets the context in which discussions and debates about policy
options take place. The frame that resonates most with the target audience is
likely to shape how it understands the issue that is being contested (Payne
2001; Benford & Snow 2000; Tarrow 1998). The ongoing struggle between the
‘pro-choice’ and ‘pro-life’ camps in the US abortion debate is one example of
competing frames; supporters of each position seek to define the issue, since
this will affect which policy choices are seen as appropriate.
Although the United States enjoyed broad international support and
sympathy during its campaign against Afghanistan, its subsequent actions
strained its effort to build international support for the war on terror. This
can be explained in part by two frames that the US employed as it defined the
war on terror beyond Afghanistan: linking the war on terrorism with efforts
to combat the spread of WMD; and seeking to justify the invasion of Iraq as
central to the war on terror. The latter, in particular, provoked international
objection.
First, by early 2002, the central focus of the war on terror began to shift, as
US officials began conflating concerns about terrorism with the proliferation
of WMD. Some in the administration, notably Cheney, were convinced
immediately after 9/11 that the combination of terrorism and WMD was the
most serious threat facing the United States. The terrorist"WMD connection
became a central concern of US national security. In his state of the union
address in January 2002, for example, Bush pinpointed terrorists and states
seeking to acquire WMD as the country’s two central threats (Bush 2002e).
These are highlighted in the NSS published in September 2002 (Bush 2002b:
13"14), and preventing terrorists from acquiring WMD remains a key goal in
the 2006 NSS. In September 2003, Bush justified the US’s spring invasion of
Iraq by pointing to Saddam’s efforts to ‘cultivate[d] ties to terror while it built
weapons of mass destruction’, and he reiterated the argument that ‘outlaw
regimes’ with WMD presented a major threat to the international community
(Bush 2003).
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R. de Nevers
Second, the administration sought to frame the invasion of Iraq and the
removal of Saddam Hussein from power as central to the war on terror "
indeed, as the next key battle after Afghanistan. The administration pursued
two main arguments to make its case for war: linking the Iraqi regime to
terrorists, especially Al Qaeda, and stressing the threat posed by Saddam
Hussein’s WMD programs. This combination mandated Hussein’s removal
from power.
The administration devoted a great deal of effort to asserting a link
between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Administration officials argued that the
government had ‘hard evidence’ of ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq, and
repeatedly discussed Iraq and 9/11 together, as a justification to oust Saddam
Hussein from power. Both before and after the invasion of Iraq, Cheney
insisted that the administration was learning ‘more and more’ about links
between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and he insinuated a link between Saddam
Hussein and the 9/11 attacks (Kornblut & Bender 2003; Gerstenzang 2004).
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld insisted in September 2002 that links
between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda were ‘not debatable’ (Garramone
2002). And in his February 2003 speech to the United Nations laying out the
case for an invasion Secretary of State Colin Powell stressed links between
Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, declaring that ‘Iraq today harbors a deadly
terrorist network, headed by . . . an associate and collaborator of Osama bin
Laden and his Al Qaeda lieutenants’ (Powell 2003).
In addition, the administration argued that Saddam Hussein’s effort to
acquire WMD made him a dangerous and immediate threat to the United
States and its allies. The president, vice president, secretary of state, and
national security advisor declared that Saddam Hussein had not only
weapons programs, but weapons as well.7 Cheney stated that ‘there is no
doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction’, which he
would certainly use against the US and its allies given his history of using
WMD (Bumiller & Dao 2002). Powell declared at the United Nations that
Saddam Hussein had robust WMD programs and stockpiles of biological
and chemical weapons, in violation of UN resolutions. The administration
argued that this, and the danger that Saddam Hussein would transfer such
weapons to terrorist groups, mandated immediate action against Iraq.
The focus on WMD was a logical step in US national security thinking.
WMD proliferation and ‘catastrophic terrorism’ had emerged as urgent
policy issues in the 1990s, and the Bush administration made preventing such
proliferation a priority concern when it came to office. Moreover, the Bush
administration clearly favored Saddam Hussein’s removal from power well
before 9/11. What this suggests is that administration officials developed
frames for the war on terror that supported the policies they favored prior to
the 9/11 events.8
Reconfiguring the Sovereignty Norm
Successful efforts to delegitimize previously accepted practices will provoke
questions about what behaviors ought to take their place. Ethical arguments
Sovereignty and Ethical Argument in the Struggle 9
can suggest alternate norms or behaviors that are more suitable to the
normative approach on which the argument is based (Crawford 2002). The
Bush administration adopted this approach by explicitly linking state
sponsors of terrorism to sovereignty. Two interlinked elements can be seen
in this effort. First, the administration argued that state sponsors of terrorism
should be held accountable for activities taking place on their soil. Second,
drawing on efforts in the 1990s to stress states’ humanitarian obligations to
their citizens, the administration proposed a new interpretation of the rights
and responsibilities inherent in the sovereignty norm.
The initial logic of holding states accountable was as much strategic as
normative, as noted earlier, and it drew on recent UN anti-terrorism
conventions that obliged states to prevent the use of their territory by
terrorists. Bush underscored this normative position clearly in his speech to
the United Nations in November 2001, stating that ‘the allies of terror are
equally guilty of murder and equally accountable to justice’ (Bush 2001b).
Bush and others repeatedly noted that no distinction could be made
between terrorists and their supporters, and that both would be held
accountable.
The administration also emphasized the obligations inherent in sovereignty. Beginning in the spring of 2002, administration spokesmen and US
policy documents stressed two points: sovereign states have normative
obligations to other members of the international community, and states
might forfeit the protections inherent in sovereignty if they ignored these
obligations. For example, Richard Haass, then Director of Policy-Planning at
the State Department, said: ‘Sovereignty entails obligations. One is not to
massacre your own people. Another is not to support terrorism in any way. If
a government fails to meet these obligations, then it forfeits some of the
normal advantages of sovereignty, including the right to be left alone inside
your own territory. Other governments, including the United States, gain the
right to intervene’ (Lemann 2002). Similarly, the September 2002 NSS states
the United States’ intention to ‘deny further sponsorship, support, and
sanctuary to terrorists by convincing or compelling states to accept their
sovereign responsibilities’(Bush 2002b:6). That the administration sought to
reconstruct understandings of appropriate state behavior is also evident in the
2003 NSCT’s blunt statement that the administration’s goal was to ‘establish
a new international norm regarding terrorism requiring non-support, nontolerance, and active opposition to terrorists’ (National Security Council
2003). The NSCT relied on UNSC Resolution 1373 as justification for
arguing that states must fulfill their ‘obligations for combating terrorism’, or
be held accountable by the United States.
Haass most clearly enunciated the administration’s policy goals with regard
to the sovereignty norm in a speech in January 2003. Reinforcing some of the
points that appear in the NSCT, he noted that:
[O]utlaw regimes jeopardize their sovereign status by pursuing reckless policies fraught
with danger for their citizens and the international community. . . . states risk forfeiting
their sovereignty when they take steps that represent a clear threat to global security.
When certain regimes with a history of aggression and support for terrorism pursue
10 R. de Nevers
weapons of mass destruction . . . they jeopardize their sovereign immunity from
intervention " including anticipatory action to destroy this developing capability.
(Haass 2003)
In addition to international anti-terrorism conventions, the Bush administration’s effort to revise understandings of the sovereignty norm built on
arguments raised in the debate about humanitarian intervention in the 1990s.
The end of the Cold War and increased attention to humanitarian
emergencies led the international community toward adoption of the concept
of ‘sovereignty as responsibility’; the view that if a state cannot provide for
the security and well-being of its citizens, it must accept help from other states
or the international community. Other states have a corresponding obligation
to respond (Deng 1996; ICISS 2001; Annan 2005). A key difference in the
Bush administration’s approach, however, was to emphasize the United
States’ ‘right to intervene’ if states failed to quell terrorism on their soil, as
opposed to the humanitarian ‘responsibility to protect’.9 The latter concept
remains controversial because many states, especially in the developing world,
perceive humanitarian intervention as an effort to weaken the norm of nonintervention (Ayoob 2001). New norms are more likely to succeed if they ‘fit’
with other core norms (Florini 1996; Ikenberry 1992); ‘sovereignty as
responsibility’ remains contested because it clashes with other key international principles that many states hold dear.
Thus, the US sought to delegitimize the use of terrorist acts by branding
them as immoral and as behavior civilized states must reject. It sought to
frame preventing the spread of WMD as central to the war on terror, and to
justify invading Iraq as key to preventing terrorists from acquiring WMD.
Finally, it sought to reconstruct international attitudes regarding state
sponsors of terrorism by arguing that state sponsors forfeited sovereignty.
The administration also sought endorsement of its vision of how to treat state
sponsors of terrorism, by calling for the forceful removal of the governments
of these states.
The International Response to US Arguments
An initial assessment suggests that the international response to US efforts to
reshape international understandings of sovereignty and state support for
terrorism with normative arguments has been mixed. The international
community appears to have been receptive to the initial US efforts to
delegitimize terrorism. The attempt to frame the war on terror as linked to
WMD and Iraq met with skepticism, however, and it faced fierce competition
from alternate frames, particularly with regard to Iraq. Finally, the invasion
of Iraq damaged the US effort to reconstruct attitudes about states’ sovereign
responsibilities.
First, the international community of states appears to be moving toward the
rejection of terrorism as an acceptable practice. This was evident in the initial
response to the 9/11 attacks and even earlier, when the majority of states in
the international system concurred that states should not support terrorist
Sovereignty and Ethical Argument in the Struggle 11
activities. International organizations and states condemned the 9/11 attacks
and expressed strong support for the United States. The North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) for the first time in its history invoked Article V of its
Charter, which calls on all members to aid any member state that is attacked.
Many organizations, including the United Nations and the EU, noted that the
United States had a legitimate right to respond to the attack under the UN
Charter’s provisions for self-defense (Article 51), and the EU and NATO
offered to contribute to such a response. Even when it became clear that this
would mean an attack not just against Al Qaeda but also against Afghanistan,
international organizations, major US allies, and even former opponents "
notably Russia " offered to support the United States.
There were also indications in 2001 that the international community might
embrace a reconstructed understanding of sovereignty, as advocated by the
United States. As early as September 12, there was widespread condemnation
of state sponsorship of terrorism. The UNSC, for example, reiterated its
proscriptions against supporting terrorist groups both before and after the
US invasion of Afghanistan. Resolution 1368, passed on 12 September 2001,
stressed ‘that those responsible for aiding, supporting or harboring the
perpetrators, organizers, and sponsors of these acts will be held accountable’.
This reflected Bush’s language, and was stronger than previous UN
admonitions against supporting terrorist groups. The same language
appeared in several other UNSC resolutions in the fall of 2001 and in UN
General Assembly resolutions after 9/11. Similarly, the EU noted that
‘actions . . . may also be directed against states abetting, supporting, or
harboring terrorists’ (emphasis added), and the Group of Eight (G-8) listed
among its priorities, in response to 9/11, the need to deny financing and safe
haven to terrorists (European Council 2001; G-8 2001). The language in these
statements strongly supports the view that backing terrorism puts a state
outside the pale of international society.
The United Nations also sought to ensure greater enforcement of
international conventions against terrorism and state support for terrorism.
UNSC Resolution 1373, adopted in September 2001 under Chapter VII of
the UN Charter, was a milestone because it made support for the UN
conventions regarding terrorist activities and financing mandatory. It also
established a new UNSC committee, the Counter-Terrorism Committee, to
monitor the implementation of existing international conventions proscribing
terrorism, and to encourage states to improve their internal efforts to combat
terrorism.
These measures suggest that a fertile climate existed, in 2002, for stronger
approaches to the problem of state support for terrorism. This did not
necessarily imply agreement on what those approaches should be, however.
While a broad range of states and international organizations both condoned
and materially supported US actions in Afghanistan, many simultaneously
underscored the need for an international approach to develop responses to
the problems posed by terrorism.
Second, the success of the US effort to frame the war on terror has been
mixed at best. While the focus on the danger of terrorists using WMD made
12 R. de Nevers
sense from the US perspective, this did not resonate widely. Concern about
terrorism is widespread, but the threat most countries and societies face from
terrorism is immediate and bloody, not a diffuse and perhaps distant threat of
chemical or biological attack.
Similarly, the administration failed to persuade the international community to accept its framing of Iraq as central to the war on terror. The US
public apparently was swayed by the administration’s continued insistence
that Iraq was linked to Al Qaeda and, by inference, to its attacks on the
United States (Kull 2003). But key members of the international community
did not accept that an invasion of Iraq was justified. Both governments and
intelligence services from other states expressed skepticism about the links
between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and about the immediacy of the threat posed by
Iraq’s WMD (Dombrowski & Payne 2003; Drogin 2006). (Many experts in
the US government were skeptical as well, but their concerns were ignored
(Barstow 2004).) This skepticism was most evident in UN debates on the issue
of a second resolution explicitly authorizing the use of force against Iraq, and,
at the popular level, in the worldwide demonstrations against the war in early
2003.
At the same time, competing frames regarding terrorism have continued to
resonate internationally, principally in the Arab world. Three elements in
particular are worth noting. First, the ongoing Israeli"Palestinian conflict
has led many in the Arab world to argue that terrorism cannot be rejected
completely when people are subject to oppression. Second, the US invasion of
Iraq and overthrow of Saddam Hussein is viewed by many in the Middle East
as an effort to establish US dominance over Iraq. The continued US presence
there, the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, and the escalating violence
are believed to support this point. Third, the Islamist movement has
succeeded in exploiting these factors to create a different frame that justifies
terrorism by shifting attention to the role of the US, the West, and Israel as
oppressors of Islam and backers of corrupt dictatorships in the Arab world.
Moreover, both Islamist groups and insurgent groups in Iraq have been highly
successful at manipulating the media to ensure that their preferred frames
remain visible (Sivan 2003; Kinnane 2004; Beinart 2005; Byman 2005;
Cordesman 2005).
In spite of these competing frames, general support for terrorism continues
to erode. A terrorist attack on an elementary school in Beslan, Russia, in
September 2004 that resulted in over 300 deaths, half of them children, caused
particular revulsion. The spread of terrorist attacks in recent years to
countries ranging from Indonesia to Spain, England, Egypt, and Jordan has
also decreased popular support for terrorist acts in most countries, including
in the Arab world. But the uneasy coexistence of these competing frames
can be seen in the fact that popular attitudes toward the appropriateness
of terrorism depend to some degree on who the targets of the attacks are
(Pew Global Attitudes Project 2005).
Finally, the US invasion of Iraq damaged the Bush administration’s effort
to reconfigure attitudes about sovereignty. The consequence of the Iraq
campaign was to refocus international attention on the way that power is
Sovereignty and Ethical Argument in the Struggle 13
exercised, particularly its unilateral and pre-emptive use, rather than on the
ends for which force was used. This contrasted with the preference for
multilateralism evident in many international organizations’ statements of
support for US actions in Afghanistan. The EU, for example, stressed the
need to develop a broad coalition against terrorism in general and
Afghanistan in particular ‘under United Nations aegis’, while the G-8
emphasized the importance of working cooperatively to ensure global
implementation of UN resolutions designed to combat terrorism. Similarly,
the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) supported cooperation to combat terrorism " in conformity with the UN Charter, and with a
central role accorded to the United Nations (ASEAN 2001).
Some international observers agreed that the nature of the international
system had changed following 9/11, and that new approaches to the problem
of terrorism were needed. But these observers contended that a shared
understanding of what the new system was, and what its rules should be, must
be established prior to the implementation of new policies. They objected
specifically to the US’s espousal of preventive attack, arguing that the
international community, not the United States, must work out new rules
about the appropriate use of force before states took such actions (Bertram
2002"3; Heisbourg 2002"3). UN Secretary General Kofi Annan stated his
view that the invasion of Iraq had been illegal, since it was undertaken
without UNSC consent. He warned that there was a pending ‘crisis of the
international system’ as a result of the dissent within the United Nations over
Iraq, and insisted that ‘those who seek to bestow legitimacy must themselves
embody it, and those who invoke international law must themselves submit to
it’, a clear reference to US policy (Barringer 2003; Hoge 2004).
Skepticism about US policies led to a deep split among European
governments over whether to support the US intervention in Iraq. It also
stiffened resistance to the US proposition that state sponsors of terrorism
forfeited sovereignty, and strengthened support for non-intervention. State
leaders at the summit of the Non-Aligned Movement, held in Kuala Lumpur
in late February 2003, for example, argued that combating terrorism must
be done in ways that conformed to international law and the principles
of the UN Charter, and they explicitly rejected unilateral actions. Both the
European Parliament and Non-Aligned Movement underscored their
strong support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq in the
run-up to the US-led invasion, and reiterated the importance of the principle
of non-intervention (Non-Aligned Movement 2003; European Parliament
2003).
Conclusion
Several conclusions can be drawn from this examination of the US’s use of
normative and ethical arguments in its effort to define the war on terror. First,
while both states and the broader public appear to agree that terrorism is
unacceptable, the US can claim only partial credit for this. Most states
have long rejected terrorism, and the rash of terrorist acts around the globe,
14 R. de Nevers
with accompanying civilian deaths, has generated increased disapproval of
terrorism as a tactic. The international community had also been moving
toward the rejection of state sponsorship of terrorism during the 1990s. The
US goal of delegitimizing terrorism and state support for it thus found a
receptive audience, but this goal was not new.
Second, US efforts to frame the war on terror have been relatively
unsuccessful. The US effort to link the war on terror with WMD has had
little success, because concern about terrorism tends to focus on local attacks,
not the specter of WMD. US inconsistency regarding WMD also feeds
cynicism about US goals. The United States invaded Iraq to prevent its
acquisition of WMD, while ignoring North Korea’s overt efforts to expand its
nuclear capabilities, for example, and Washington appears to favor Pakistan’s
cooperation against Al Qaeda despite evidence that a massive network that
sold WMD-related materials to rogue states operated from Pakistan (Braun
and Chyba 2004). The administration’s agreement to cooperate on civilian
nuclear energy with India in spite of India’s continued rejection of the
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, while denying Iran’s right to nuclear
technology, is another example. These have strengthened the perception of
double standards in US policy.
Similarly, the international community was not convinced that the
intervention in Iraq was key to the war on terror, and the failure to find
WMD there damaged US efforts to justify the invasion as necessary to
prevent terrorists from acquiring WMD. Instead, competing frames depicting
the US as an occupying power and justifying terrorism as a legitimate tool
against occupiers have muddied the picture of US goals in Iraq, and continue
to generate extremist support for terrorism.
Third, the general consensus that terrorism is unacceptable has not
translated into agreement with the US effort to reconstruct international
attitudes regarding sovereignty, responsibility, and state sponsors of terrorism. Rather, other members of the international community remain unwilling
to agree to new guidelines regarding sovereignty if they have doubts about
how they will be applied. Moreover, the means by which the United States has
prosecuted the war against state sponsors of terrorism " notably by taking the
fight to Iraq " may have reinforced support for one aspect of the existing
sovereignty norm instead: non-intervention.
Although administration officials insisted that the bar must be set high in
terms of when preemptive action is justified against terrorists or the spread of
WMD, the US’s willingness to take action without international agreement
on the need for intervention " and on the basis of faulty intelligence " may
lead other states to adopt preemptive strategies without undue concern for
the facts. Russia insists, for example, that it confronts an international
terrorist threat in Chechnya, and has argued that the international community does not have the right to question its motives or actions. After the
September 2004 terrorist attack in Beslan, Chief of Staff Col. Gen. Yury
Baluyevsky stated that Russia could respond with ‘preemptive strikes . . . to
liquidate terrorist bases in any region of the world’ (Peterson 2004). There are
a number of other states that might be tempted to adopt preemptive policies
Sovereignty and Ethical Argument in the Struggle 15
on the grounds that they face a terrorist threat, and this could lead to actions
the United States would not particularly like.
The best way for the United States both to discourage other states from
taking rash preemptive steps, and to ease international concern about
unilateral US actions, is to take the lead in developing international
guidelines both for designating states that are supporting terrorist groups,
and generating internationally accepted criteria for dealing with state
sponsors of terror. It is doubtful that the United Nations and other
international bodies will agree to authorize regime change on anything but
a case-by-case basis. But agreement on the factors that would make state
sponsors of terrorism the target of international sanctions " up to and
including the use of force against them " is possible. The UNSC imposed
economic sanctions on three states for supporting terrorists in the 1990s
(Cortwright & Lopez 2000), and current efforts to block financing to terrorist
groups have broad international support (IISS 2003).
Moreover, during the 1990s, the United Nations discussed the prospect that
states could be liable to intervention under certain circumstances for
humanitarian purposes, as noted earlier. The sticking point in discussions
regarding humanitarian intervention remained the issue of state sovereignty.
Some scholars have argued that reframing the debate to focus on the
responsibilities that accompany sovereignty has defused the tension with nonintervention, but this has not yet been tested in practice (Malone & Hagman
2002). The US effort to reframe terrorism as an element of ‘sovereignty as
responsibility’ may be more successful. If the international community agreed
that a state was undertaking support for terrorists, and represented a clear
threat to others, agreement on intervention might be easier than in
humanitarian cases. The UN Charter authorizes the use of force in selfdefense, or to ensure international peace and security. A wide swathe of
countries have been affected by terrorist attacks in recent years, so it could be
argued convincingly that state sponsors of terrorism pose a clear threat to
international peace and security. International support for the US intervention in Afghanistan showed that agreement on even the overthrow of a
government is possible if there is widespread consensus on that government’s
culpability.
Notes
1
This literature includes Finnemore & Sikkink (2000), Nadelmann (1990), Raymond (1997), Florini
(1996), Risse (2000), Checkel (2001), Crawford (2002), and Axelrod (1986).
2
Notably, the Reagan administration used military force in response to terrorism in only two cases, while
there were more than 600 terrorist incidents during Reagan’s presidency. The Clinton administration
also used force twice in response to terrorist attacks. See Wills (2003:6 "11) and Crenshaw (2004).
3
For a complete list of international conventions and UN acts against terrorism, see http://www.un.org/
terrorism/.
4
The Taliban was not recognized by the UN or by most states as the legitimate government of
Afghanistan.
5
On the distinction between compellence and deterrence, see Schelling (1966: 78 "91).
16 R. de Nevers
6
To be sure, all of these practices continue in some form, but they are not ‘taken for granted’ practices in
the international system, but practices that are viewed as evil or wrong. On changing international
moral practices, see Nadelmann (1990) and Keck & Sikkink (1998).
7
For an analysis of the Administration’s justifications about WMD and Iraq, see Cirincione, Mathews, &
Perkovich (2004).
8
Jervis (2005:38) notes that most government officials and scholars have tended to adopt arguments
regarding the war on terror that reflect their thinking prior to 9/11.
9
Some US commentators such as Feinstein (2005 "6) and Daalder & Steinberg, (2005) argue that the
combination of genocides and new threats has led to acceptance that sovereignty is ‘contingent’, not an
inherent right.
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Biographies
Renée de Nevers is an Assistant Professor of Public Administration at
The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.
Previously she taught at the University of Oklahoma, and was a Program
Officer at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. She has been
a research fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs,
the Center for International Security and Cooperation and the Hoover
Institution at Stanford University, and the International Institute for
Strategic Studies. She received her Ph.D. from Columbia University. Recent
articles include ‘Modernizing the Geneva Conventions’ (Washington Quarterly, Spring 2006), and ‘The Geneva Conventions and New Wars’ (Political
Science Quarterly, Fall 2006). Her book, Comrades No More: the Seeds of
Change in Eastern Europe, was published by the MIT Press in 2003.